Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday September 09, 2010 @10:08AM
from the can-someone-win-already dept.

An anonymous reader pointed us to an article talking about Google TV and AppleTV challenging the major networks and taking their place in your living room. It'll be a tough battle, amusingly waged on cable company wires in many major markets.

they won't get far off the ground. when it takes money out of the cable company mouths (the ISPs), they will throttle down google tv and apple tv so that you will have to use their services instead and there will be nothing we can do about it because enforcing net neutrality is big government intervention - just go ask the tea party people - they are adamant against net neutrality

From the demo, Google TV requires some sort of keyboard/mouse interface. From the FAQ [google.com], it doesn't appear that it will be a standard Bluetooth one. Other the other end, Apple has a simplified remote but will allow for control through one of the iOS devices. I think where the battle will be won is how consumers will like the UI.

(or when the cable company says, "look we have tv over the internet now too" like they did with phone service)

So? Let them, then there would be three TV over IP services vying for my money instead of just two (actually between Netflix, Amazon, and the possible multitude of Android based players there will be many more than three but you get the point). Though I suspect rather than "you can't use our lines for that" it will be a computer nerd shacked up in his workshop doing tests on each of the devices that discovers that the cable company's offering magically gets better bandwidth and latency than their competition. Though which cable companies will be stupid enough to pick a fight with the likes of Google and Apple at the same time remains to be seen (but you just know there will be at least one of them that thinks they can get away with it).

I doubt many cable companies, when faced with a loss of TV subscribers, will turn around and alienate their ISP subscribers with limitations on their service. I'm betting they'd like to have a hand in the delivery of TV content, even if it is only as the ISP over which someone else's digital service is delivered.

As to the Net Neutrality issue, my answer to the question has been and will still be "labeling laws". Doesn't bother me one bit if my cable company wants to say "services X, Y, and Z are not allowed on our network", so long as that's clearly stated up front.

And no, I don't expect the ever-shrinking population that only has one ISP option (or doesn't know how to find the other options) to be driving industry practices WRT network management.

Apple will seriously have to convince people that their service is worth it considering how locked down, even for apple, the appleTV is. No web streaming (aside from youtube) means no hulu, no network websites, no thedailyshow.com. As a cable replacement it just might be viable on a per-show basis once more networks sign up, but as of now it's a $99 box that apple's selling to let them sell you stuff you most likely can get legitimately on the web for free.

If it wasn't so damned restricted I might give it a look, but it would take some heavy convincing. And this is coming from a Mac user of almost 2 decades now.

It looks like that Apple TV is out to replace cable companies, but I think that's only a superficial view of the long term plan. There's been no announcement to date that Apple plans to offer any channel that appears on cable.. rather they go through online content providers. They complete skipped the major gripe of cable, i.e. to offer a "subscribe to channels you want ala carte", and changed the game to "buy what episodes you want to see, on demand".

Which leads to the question.. so what role do the networks play in the grand scheme of things... NBC / ABC / CBS / FOX are not all developing their own content, they buy that content from a show producer. If Apple develops enough mindshare and living rooms, you don't need NBC to order the episodes of a new show, Apple can buy it directly from the show's producers.

This could be a great play to cut out all the middlemen, not just the cable company or the satellite monthly fee, but the entire tv network system as well... it's possibly the biggest change in the business of TV in 50 years, and frankly none of the TV networks seem to notice yet.

Is it just me or is that all cynicism and no insight? Just because it sounds skeptical doesn't mean squat. The historical lack of involvement of those brands to TV is barely relevant to their current efforts to enter the market.

I get tired about hearing about great old capitalism and choices in a market that essentially HAS NO CHOICES. I'm all for letting the market decide, but some people seem determined to fit a square peg in a round hole. It doesn't work in every single market. Stop parroting that crap and think about it for a minute. I mean seriously think. It's entirely possible that BOTH companies offering these services are simply going to dictate to you what you're allowed to do with their service and there is not a single thing you can do it. In other words, you can't vote for your wallet if there's no one there to vote for.

It doesn't seem to me that the delivery mechanism as big a deal as what product is being delivered. My fancy-schmancy digital-HD cable box with DVR and on-demand programming and bagels with cream cheese delivers over 500 channels of unmitigated crap. Hell, if it weren't for BBC America (Top Gear & Dr Who), I wouldn't watch anything at all. How is having an JobsBox or a GoogleFlooby going to change that? I'm going to spend my time watching YouTube? Really? That's the big plan? YouTube?? What am I missing?

I don't spend much time watching TV either, but not because I think it's brainless crap. I just don't have enough time. Honestly, I think TV is fantastically good these days. There are some extremely well written and produced shows on TV and I really do wish I had more time to watch.

Like you, I very rarely watch live tv though. I use the DVR and Netflix for most of what I actually do watch.

BTW, I would put local news and weather in the pile I label crap. They are poorly produced, sensationalist, consultant driven productions (I'm assuming you are in the US). I've moved around the US a little bit and the local news is the exact same in every city. The same sets, the same talking heads, waving flag graphics, color schemes, music, and network feeds. They all call their weather segments storm-tracker-weather or something similar. Watching local news is like saying you shop at the local walmart.

"I get tired about hearing about great old capitalism and choices in a market that essentially HAS NO CHOICES"

And if you were even remotely correct that there are NO CHOICES, I would agree with you.

You can probably choose your local cable company. Some areas even have more than one.

You can probably choose your local phone company. Some areas even have more than one.

You can likely choose from at least a handful of satelite providers. This may be restricted for you personally if you live in an apartment, but sad as you may find this the market is not driven by your individual circumstances.

I'm increasingly seeing people using 3G and 4G wireless service as an ISP.

You may be able to choose an independent ISP in your area

Much as I'm sure you hate to hear it, if nobody is offering a service you consider worth the money, you can choose not to do business with any of them.

Go on, explain to me why the last one isn't an option. Pretend broadband is necessary to survive in modern society (even though lots of people get by fine without it), or that it's a God-given right that somebody just has to provide you a service to your liking.

What you perceive as broadband being 'necessary', I perceive as the existing services being worth the money to you even though you protest otherwise.

"It's entirely possible that BOTH companies offering these services are simply going to dictate to you what you're allowed to do with their service"

"BOTH"? LOL. Ok, we'll pretend there are only two.

Right, the phone company (who hates competition in the ISP market from the cable company) is going to help the cable company compete by cooperating with a ban on IP-baed delivery of TV shows, thereby allowing the cable company to get by with such a ban. Very realistic concern.

I'm well aware of the limits of the competitive markets, but when it comes to whether those principles apply to ISP's, I'm not the one who hasn't thought the matter through.

If only they'd focus on giving consumers what they want; they'd make a ton more money.

They'd have a ton more happy and satisfied (loyal) customers but I don't know if they'd make more money. I'm sure they've done the math and figured out that nickle and diming us at every turn results in more dollars in their pockets, despite annoying the crap out of us on a regular basis and, since happy customers aren't their goal, they've followed the money.

It would be nice if a content provider was able to build a viable business model based around happy customers but, thus far, it seems to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - a nice dream but never gonna happen.

So if two services offer the same speeds, that's evidence of collusion; but if a service offers different speeds, that excludes it from consideration because it doesn't meet your arbitrary definition of "broadband". Interesting.

Well, I'm going to address all of your comments in the context of your claim that broadband is necessary for access to government services, in spite of the fact that such a claim is nothing but an oft-repeated lie.

I don't believe your claim of collusion between the phone company and the cable company. In the case we're discussing (restricting TV-over-IP), such collusion would directly contradict the phone company's interests. If you think collusion is occuring, raise the issue in court; that's why we have anti-trust laws. (That is of course if, as you claim, the two acting together would constitute a monopoly.)

Satellite counts. Name a government service that you cannot access with sat service because it's too slow.

3G counts. Name a government service that you cannot access with 3G because it's too slow.

I'm sorry to hear you're unaware of the independent options in your area; your lack of awareness does not a monopoly make.

I already challenged anyone who wanted to make this claim to back it up, but instead you've chosen to just parrot it blindly. Even if we pretend it were true, you can access your government services over the Internet without having broadband in your home. The fact that you can spend money on new options that make your life easier does not mean that a person who doesn't spend money on those options is a 'second class citizen'

So we either get really shitty and SLOW internet or we get really fast and RESTRICTED internet? Those are AWESOME choices. Where do I sign up? Also no, the option to not have any internet is not actually an option, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

You can't call it fair competition when the players in the market have forced monopolies. I don't know if you're dense or just being facetious.